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Monday, 30 January 2006 02:49 |
Homage to Nesuhi Ertegun
By John Sinclair
An Atlantic jazz album circa 1955-1975 was a beautiful thing to behold. From the distinctive cover art to the first-class liner notes by Nat Hentoff or Martin Williams to the mind-expanding music captured in state-of-the-art stereo sound inside, Atlantic LPs by contract artists like the Modern Jazz Quartet, Charles Mingus, John Coltrane, Yusef Lateef, Ornette Coleman and Rahsaan Roland Kirk presented the contemporary creative experience with sublime dignity, exquisite taste, and a superb sense of what jazz listeners wanted to hear.
These historic sides and scores of others by best-selling jazz artists like Herbie Mann, Eddie Harris and Les McCann mark the achievement of Nesuhi Ertegun, the long-time Atlantic Records jazz director, executive vice-president and pioneering figure in the modern recording industry.
A music lover first and always, Nesuhi Ertegun was an early champion of stereo recording and the Long-Play 33-1/3 rpm album format. As a visionary executive and a deft administrator, Mr. Ertegun helped direct the dynamic growth of Atlantic Records from a small R&B-based independent to a major power in the popular music world today.
The elder son of the Turkish Ambassador to the U.S., Nesuhi Ertegun nurtured his love of American vernacular music into an early career as a jazz concert producer in the nation's capitol. He moved to Los Angeles in 1946 and became co-owner of the Jazzman Record Shop, editor of Record Changer magazine, professor of the History of Jazz at UCLA, and partner with Lester Koenig at Contemporary Records, where between 1951-54 he developed a line of 33-1/3 rpm LPs and experimented with stereo recording techniques.
Mr. Ertegun relocated to New York City in 1955 to join his younger brother Ahmet and partner Jerry Wexler in the day-to-day operations of Atlantic Records. He assumed responsibility for gathering the label's vast catalog of hit singles into 12" LP packages featuring artists like Ray Charles, Big Joe Turner, Ruth Brown, The Clovers, The Drifters, LaVern Baker, Chuck Willis and other great R&B stars.
Nesuhi Ertegun also produced a series of classic stereo LPs by the Modern Jazz Quartet, Mingus, Monk, Sonny Rollins, Chris Conner, Lennie Tristano, Ray Charles with Milt Jackson, Coltrane, Coleman, and an important roster of modern jazz artists. "We decided to record everything in stereo," Mr. Ertegun told Charlie Gillett, "long before there was a general market for stereo records."
Nesuhi Ertegun's trail-blazing work at Contemporary and Atlantic, and his later contributions as Atlantic's executive vice-president during the 1960s and '70s, helped determine the shape of the modern record business. Musically, he oversaw the creation of works of long-playing art that, well into the CD era, continue to educate, delight and entertain successive generations of fellow music lovers from all walks of life.
--New Orleans
January 15, 1995
(C) 1995, 2006 John Sinclair. All Rights Reserved.
Note: Charlie Gillett's excellent history of Atlantic Records, Making Tracks (New York: E.P. Dutton & Co., 1974) provided crucial information for this piece.
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